1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a product search system, a product search method, and a product search program, and more particularly, to a technique for allowing a user to search for desired products via a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, electronic commerce (EC) businesses which sell products by allowing users to search for and select the products via the Internet have spread rapidly.
On the other hand, business categories in which Internet sales (use of EC) account for a larger share of total sales on the market are limited to those which can identify products by conventional text-based searches on personal computers, books, and the like. Thus, the use of electronic commerce is slow to spread in the fashion industry and the like in which appearance provides important clues in purchasing products.
Looking specifically at the fashion apparel industry, there are moves to provide various product search methods to the user including searches by brand, shape and type of clothing, color, and the like to make it easy to search for products.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-92020 discloses an Internet shopping system based on color search, where the Internet shopping system proposes a combination of color coordinated products and allows the user to change colors of products placed in a virtual space and search for and purchase products with changed colors.
Also, some recent EC sites are designed to display a list of products (with thumbnail images of the products) which match search conditions inputted by the user. Then, in response to a click on an image of a desired product, the sites transfer the user to a screen which displays an enlarged image and detailed information about the product. Furthermore, some EC sites have capabilities to display a list of a product group on a screen, allowing the user to put a check mark in front of products of interest, and display only the checked products together in response to a command to compare the products.
However, although the Internet shopping system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-92020 allows the user to search for products by color across different dealers and different product types, the color is merely one search condition. For example, when searching for products of the fashion apparel industry, it is not always possible for the user to find a desired product.
Also, when viewing detailed information about a product of interest by clicking the product on a list screen of a product group retrieved based on search conditions inputted on a client terminal on a known EC site, the user can view detailed information about only one product at a time and cannot obtain satisfactory information about products (e.g., apparel products) for which comparisons and combinations are important.
Furthermore, on a known EC site which allows the user to put a check mark in front of products of interest and displays only the checked products together in response to a command to compare the products, the use of the capabilities provided by the EC site will make it easy to compare products, but it is not possible to compare products which are not presented on the list screen of the product group from the beginning.
For example, if the user has found a product (autumn/winter top for ladies) she likes on a list screen of an apparel product group, but cannot find a product (autumn/winter bottom for ladies) the user wants to coordinate with, the user is supposed to input a search query (“ladies” “autumn/winter” “bottoms”) and search again for a product (bottom) the user wants to coordinate with the product (top) she likes, on a list screen of a product group retrieved based on the search query. However, since the list screen is switched between the product groups, it is not possible to compare detailed information about the two products (top and bottom) including product images on the same screen.